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JACQUELINE DORMER/STAFF PHOTO Frank Zangari, standing left, Jim Mistishin, standing center, and Kevin Sibbett conduct a training seminar on fire dynamics fundamentals for volunteer firefighters on Sunday at the Rangers Hose Company in Girardville. All are on the training committee for the Schuylkill County Volunteer Firefighters Association.

JACQUELINE DORMER/STAFF PHOTO
Jim Misstishin, conducts a training seminar on fire dynamics fundamentals for volunteer firefighters at the Rangers Hose Company in Girardville on Sunday evening, February 12, 2017. Misstishin is on the training committee for the Schuylkill County Volunteer Firefighters Association.

GIRARDVILLE — For five generations, there has been a member of Donny Bernosky’s family fighting fires with the Rangers Hose Company, Girardville. He joined when he was 14 years old and is now a fire captain.

“You don’t see that anymore,” Frank Zangari, the company’s fire chief and president of the Schuylkill County Fire Chiefs Association, said Thursday.

“I just don’t think anyone has an interest,” Bernosky said. “I’ve always been here, for as long as I can remember. It’s like a family away from home. There’s a lot more to it than riding the fire truck, but we have fun.”

Fire companies throughout the commonwealth have been struggling to find enough volunteers for decades. According to Zangari, Pennsylvania has gone from about 300,000 volunteer firefighters in the 1970s to less than 50,000 today.

“Volunteerism is not only a problem in the smaller communities, it is also a problem in the bigger communities,” Zangari said. “There is no one knocking on the door saying they want to be a firefighter.”

It is difficult to estimate the number of volunteer firefighters in Schuylkill County because many of them are involved in multiple companies, Zangari said. However, he said Rangers Hose Company has about 25 firefighters and the average age of volunteers in the county is over 40 years old. There are 105 fire companies in the county.

Most people simply do not have enough time to volunteer, according to local fire officials.

“All counties are facing the same problem,” Assistant Pottsville Fire Chef James Mistishin said Thursday. “Manpower is down. Volunteerism is not what it used to be and there are a lot of reasons for that. Now in this economy, we are not only seeing both parents work, but both are working multiple jobs. It is hard for anyone to find time to volunteer for anything today and it is really a crisis.”

Mistishin, who is also the training coordinator at the fire academy, said retaining firefighters is also a problem as many of them go off to college or find jobs outside the area.

“Fire companies were a central part of the small communities within the community,” John Matz, Schuylkill County Emergency Management coordinator and a retired fire chief, said Monday. “Over the last 20 years, we have seen a shift in the work schedule and where people work. There are a lot more 12-hour shifts, which makes it hard to fit in regular day-to-day life let alone shoehorn any volunteer opportunities. We have seen the decline and part of it is the communities we live in have changed significantly. There is no longer that need for the small social group. Forty years ago, it was a social group in addition to a fire company. That has changed somewhat.”

People are also being asked to volunteer for more organizations, like Boy Scouts, sports teams and schools, he said.

“Every one of those commitments takes away from other things,” he said.

Those who do volunteer also have to dedicate a significant amount of time for training.

“There is no minimum requirement to be a firefighter,” Zangari said. “I would think in today’s environment that most fire companies have essential training. The fire chiefs are responsible, so the chief has to make sure his own people are trained.”

Basic training can be more than 150 hours, he said.

The Schuylkill County Training Academy, Frackville, had 215 classes last year that included 3,288 students and 4,142 training hours, Zangari said. Certification is earned through Bucks County Community College.

“The fire service spends 75 to 80 percent of their time fundraising to survive, so not only are you asking volunteers to join the fire company and take 180 hours of training, but to raise their own funds,” Zargari said. “As our towns are downsizing, fundraising is becoming more difficult.”

Zangari serves as chairman of the Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services Institute’ Statewide Advisory Board. The board meets with state legislators to provide recommendations on how to improve volunteer numbers for the fire service in the Commonwealth. The list of recommendations, also known as Senate Resolution 6, include online training, school district and community college training partnerships, increasing worker’s compensation rates and loan forgiveness and tax credits for emergency responders and other incentives.

“I believe we need to start some kind of online training,” Zangari said.

When the National Incident Management System program was started in 2004, Zangari said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was able to train everyone online and the state fire service should be able to do the same.

“I think that will help us with recruitment,” he said. “I believe training in the technical end must still be in the field — to learn how to swing an axe, to learn how to use a saw, to learn how to put your equipment on and to use the breathing apparatus appropriately — that needs to still happen, but some of the other parts can certainly be an online program.

“The other part of the fire service no one really thinks about is the administrative part,” Zangari said.

He also said there should be state support to teach volunteers how to write reports, apply for grants or keep track of the money. Meanwhile, fire departments have taken on additional duties, such as traffic control and blight management, and require even more volunteers.

“I truly believe the fire service is heading in a direction where it is going to be part career and part volunteer, but in the direction we are going the next five years the municipalities are going to be making some big choices because I don’t see volunteers being there to maintain the level of service we have today,” Zangari said.

The first step is consolidation, he said.

“In my opinion, consolidation is one of the best moves to enhance our recruitment issues,” Zangari said. “Volunteerism will change if you can consolidate your services and our small communities have only gotten smaller over the years.”

Fire officials in Pottsville met earlier this month to discuss the future of the department. The city has seven fire companies. Mistishin said his department, American Hose Company No. 2, Pottsville, has about 12 firefighters who make at least 10 percent of the alarms.

“I applaud the Pottsville Fire Department because internally they said they have to make some changes,” Zangari said. “It is 2017 and we are not what we were in 1975. I applaud those officers for sitting down and at least discussing it and I think there will be success out of that.”

Recent consolidations in the county have proved successful, Zangari said.

They include the Minersville Fire Rescue, which was a merger of the Independent Fire Company and Rescue Hook and Ladder in 2008; Ringtown Valley Fire & Rescue Company, which was a merger of the Ringtown Chemical Fire Company No. 1 and Union Township Fire Company No. 1 in 2007; and Hegins Valley Fire-Rescue, which was a merger of the Hegins Fire Company and Valley View Fire Company in 2015.

A merger of three fire companies even crossed county lines last year when McAdoo Fire Company and Keystone Fire Company No. 1, both of McAdoo, Schuylkill County, and Tresckow Fire Company, Tresckow, Carbon County, became McAdoo Fire Inc.

“There is an enormous amount of work in consolidation, but it is working,” Zangari said. “They are providing a better service than when they were single companies. Not only did they consolidate their people, they consolidated their equipment and can downsize.”

Legislation approved last year also guarantees that consolidating companies will continue to receive the same level of funding for at least the next 10 years, Zangari said. The state Department of Economic Development can also assist fire companies with the costs and fees associated with consolidation.

“We have to do what is best for the community, but we have to do what is economically feasible too,” Matz said. “I think it is only a matter of time before we see consolidation of fire stations. They may have to get over the shock like they did when the Catholic churches had to consolidate. The only difference is they had a bishop who said they had to consolidate.”

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